Carver Center for Arts and Technology

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George Washington Carver Center for Arts and Technology
Complecti Sententias Novas (Embracing New Ideas)
Address
938 York Road
Towson, Maryland, 21204
USA
Information
Type Public magnet high school
Established 1993
School district Baltimore County Public Schools
Superintendent Joe A. Hairston
School number (410) 887-2775
Principal Karen Steele
Grades 9-12
Number of students approximately 800
Campus Suburban
Color(s) Dark green and White

         
Mascot Wildcat
Newspaper Catalyst
Website http://carverhs.bcps.org/

Carver Center for Arts and Technology is a public magnet high school located in Towson in Baltimore County, Maryland. In any given year, about 800 students attend, and typical class size is just under 20. The school is primarily known for its ten primes, for which students must apply in order to be accepted to the school. The school is distinguished in many categories, mainly its many art achievements.

Students from all middle schools in Baltimore County, as well as those homeschooled, can apply to attend Carver, although it may be much farther from their houses than their home school. Admission is based on a combination of an audition and a lottery.

Contents

[edit] Name Change

At the May, 2008 meeting of the Baltimore County Public Schools Board of Education, it was decided that upon next school year, Carver Center for Arts and Technology would become known as George Washington Carver Center for Arts and Technology. This breaks the general policy of BCPS of not naming schools with the first names of people rather opting towards Franklin High School or Carver Center. However, upon examination of the history of Carver Center, the Board made the decision to change to name in honor of the schools history as a segregated school for African Americans and to recognize George Washington Carver himself who was a scientist, writer, and artist. Therefore his name is fitting for the school, which is also dedicated to the arts and technology.

[edit] Scheduling

Carver employs block scheduling: periods are ninety minutes long, with four periods a day, and each class is held every other day. The third period is divided into five twenty-minute lunch periods. The shorter lunches are compensated by the longer classes. Together with five minutes between every class, this means that Carver's school day is slightly longer than that of the average high school.

The longer class periods allow students in classes like sculpture or carpentry more time to use materials in between getting them out and cleaning them up.

Carver has been recorded as being the high school with the second-best academics in Baltimore County.[citation needed]

[edit] Culture

The "Carver culture" focuses on respect. Its official rules are less strict than many high schools; for example, it has a looser dress code, and student paintings in the hallways include nudes.

[edit] Primes

What makes Carver unusual among Baltimore County public schools is its strong magnet system. Carver's magnet programs feature ten specialty areas, or "primes": literary arts, culinary, business and information technology, carpentry, cosmetology, dance, design and production, acting, vocal music, and visual arts (art such as painting, sculpture etc.). The visual arts prime is further divided into concentrations, including drawing and painting, multimedia, photography, sculpture, and telemedia.

As of the 2007-2008 school year General Fine Arts/Multimedia/Digital Filmmaking (formerly known as Telemedia) will hold separate auditions under the Visual Arts prime. This provides for an opportunity for students interested in the areas of filmmaking and graphic design to come to Carver for these areas and use these mediums to create art. All Visual Arts students will still be encouraged to take classes in drawing, painting, sculpting, photography, etc.sweet

As of the 2001-2002 school year "theatre" and "technical theatre" were advanced to become the theatre primes of "Acting" and "Design & Production." This provided an opportunity for students interested in performance, design, theatre management and administration, technique, etc. to study these fields without the common stereotypes or restrictions of "actors" or "techies." During the 2005-2006 school year, "Vocal Music" was considered to be renamed "Singing" (but remains "Vocal Music").

[edit] Sports

The following sports are available at Carver:

Carvers football team disbanded in 1998, after a few unsuccessful years. Carver does not currently have a football team. However, it still holds an annual Homecoming dance after a Homecoming sports game (could be soccer, field hockey, etc.) or no sports game at all. It is run by the Student Government Association and is usually a dance that is a fundraiser for the SGA.

The school's mascot is the wildcat; female teams, such as the girls' volleyball, basketball or soccer teams, are referred to as "Lady Wildcats". The girls' varsity soccer team have been division champions for the past three years and came in second on the regional level. The girls' varsity lacrosse team has also been division champs the past 3 years.

The varsity golf team won an award for having the highest GPA of any of the fall sports teams in Baltimore County.

[edit] Other Teams

Carver also has a Model United Nations program (formerly run by Scott Snyder, currently led by Hugh Kearney) that participates in many inter-scholastic activities, and a new Mock Trial team (run by Sal Giordano, social studies' department chair) that is slowly blossoming. Carver has a kinetic sculpture/engineering club, and an Academic Team.

In addition, Carver's FBLA Chapter has had multiple students qualify for the National Leadership Conference for the past six years.

The Culinary Arts Prime has also recently won the Statewide competition for ProStart and traveled to Nationals for the second year in a row.

Carver also has a Vex Robotics team competing in all major competitions in the region.

[edit] Construction

Carver students who assisted with the groundbreaking posed for a photo.

In March 2008, Baltimore County approved a new building design for Carver. Expected to be completed "by March 2012", the new school will be built on a budget of 58.7 million dollars. The new building will be built up on the current lacrosse and soccer fields, the original school building will be torn down, the fields for the new Carver will be located where the old school used to be. The design reflects the large number of program areas that are required to be located on the first floor while creating an efficient (3) story academic wing above that maximizes daylighting opportunities for the classroom areas and public spaces.

There will also be a new engaging "Central Space" that will be bordered by the 1,000 seat Theater, the Black Box Theater, Gallery space and the Culinary Arts program and Café.

The groundbreaking took place at 10:30 a.m. on September 15, 2009.

The new school building will have an energy efficiency that exceeds industry standards by means of high efficiency equipment, high insulation thermal values, high shading coefficient glazing, solar shading devices and energy recovery features for both exhausted air and waste water. It has been given a "Silver LEED" award, denoting its "green" standard.

[edit] Recognition

Carver produced nine Presidential Scholars including: J. Cook in 2000, (Abdi) Farah (also one of ARTS winners) in 2005, and Alex Levy (2008). Carver Center’s arts award winners have also included 4 Scholastics Gold Portfolio winners, 116 ARTS winners (including 60 finalists), approximately 88 Maryland Distinguished Scholar finalists (including yearly the largest number of finalists in Maryland), and 22 Marie Walsh Sharpe Scholars. Carver has produced numerous winners in the Arts Recognition and Talent Search, a program of the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts.

Carver produced five nominees for presidential scholars in 2008. That was more than any other school in the country.

Carver's AP Studio Art program has been highly praised. In 2005 it was named as having the best studio arts program of high schools its size in the world. [1]

The interdisciplinary methods of the school have also led to consistent student participation in the annual NAACP ACT-SO (Afro-American Cultural and Technical Scientific Olympics) competitions. Students often qualify at the national level and have a strong showing in state competitions.

Theresa McDaniel, a painting and drawing teacher, has been nominated five times for the 'Distinguished Teachers in the Arts' award, and won it once. Photography teacher Carrol Cook, and Visual Arts chair Joe Giordano have both been nominated twice but neither have ever won. In 2004 Carver not only had the most visual art entrants in the national art competition 'ARTS', (which is a national art competition for high school seniors who excel at Dance, Film & Video, Jazz, Music, Theater, Photography, Visual Arts, Voice, and Writing) but had the most entrants from any one school in the US. In 2007, more Carver students received awards in the NFAA competition than in any other year.

[edit] Notable alumni

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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